Mary Fisher, a violent religious enthusiast, afterward visited the Sultan of Turkey and, being mistaken for a crazy woman, was permitted to go everywhere unmolested.
The harsh treatments of the first comers fired the zeal of the more enthusiastic of the sect in England, who sought martyrdom as an honor and a passport to the home of the righteous.

They flocked to New England and fearfully vexed the souls of the Puritan magistrates and ministers.
One woman came from London to warn the authorities against persecutions.
Others came to revile, denounce and defy the powers of the church.

From the windows of their houses they would rail at the magistrates, and mock the institutions of the country, while some fanatical young women appeared nude on the streets and in the churches, as emblems of "unclothed souls of the people." Others with loud voices proclaimed that the wrath of the Almighty was about to fall like destructive lightning on Boston and Salem.

The Quakers of 1659 were quite different from that honorable body of people of the present age.
Horrified by their blasphemies and indecencies, the authorities of Massachusetts passed some cruel laws.

At first they forbade all persons "harboring Quakers," imposing severe penalties for each offence, then followed mild punishment on the Friends themselves.